A wide range of patients must be protected against unsafe and unhealthful movement--principally falling out of body supports such as a bed, tables and chairs, or by moving their body portions, and thereby rupturing sutures, or otherwise causing further injury to already impaired body portions. Without being secured in such supports by health care personnel, such patients are likely to cause serious injury to themselves. Such patients include comparative invalids, as well as those who have sufficient consciousness and strength to attempt to disengage such restraints; or to engage in substantial movement, but who are also subject to sufficient aggression, disorientation, or other debilitating condition, that disengaging their own restraints would likely result in injury to them. However, since the subject being restrained is a patient who is suffering from a medical disability, such restraint must be comfortable and not overly confining in use to be acceptable.
In sum, despite their long history of use, and the variety of forms offered, serious mishaps do occur to agitated patients, even when currently available vest or limb restraints are employed.
A safety belt for the lower torso serves to control waist movement in a secure manner. Available waist restraints basically use straps to control movement but are not really secure; thus often tend to work upwardly and regrettably may even act as a strangulation ligature. A restraint device is needed that precludes any upward belt slippage but is still adaptable to ready release from a patient torso for personal hygiene needs and other manage care purposes.
In the area of limb restraints, in addition to the first embodiment disclosed and claimed in my copending parent U.S. Ser. No. 07/723,049, mow U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,545, alternate embodiments may require only an integral anchor strap and a somewhat simplified form of padding for gaining adequate wrist application.
It is a principal object of this invention to provide a limb restraint device adapted to limit excess limb flexing including padded flexible fabric member and cloth adapted for double looping and cooperation with an adjustable anchoring means of the prior art.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a belt-like harness for the lower patient torso, which cooperates with my U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,053 vest restraint, and so precludes a vested patient, who is also a chair-bound, from wriggling down and out of the supporting chair even while his upper torso is adequately vested.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following specification and from the drawings and the claims.